The Cold, Cold Ground: Detective Sean Duffy, Book 1

Adrian McKinty was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied politics and philosophy at Oxford before moving to America in the early 1990s. Living first in Harlem, he found employment as a construction worker, barman, and bookstore clerk. In 2000 he moved to Denver to become a high school English teacher and it was there that he began writing fiction.

What a stunning book

The author of last year's Audible.com's Best Mystery or Thriller strikes again, only this book is even better. There is an enormous degree of sublety..Show More » and sophistication in this book, both in the plot and the vivid atmosphere created of 1980s Northern Ireland. McKinty always treats the reader as intelligent in his unwillingness to paint a black and white picture of the 'troubles'. He also builds a drum-tight plot which weaves fictional and true characters together. There's a lot of tounge in cheek humor at the expense of some of these character's bloated egos, too.All of these features make this a brilliant book, but the superb narration by Doyle works to make something sublime.

I Hear the Sirens in the Street: Detective Sean Duffy, Book 2

A torso in a suitcase looks like an impossible case, but Sean Duffy isn’t easily deterred, especially when his floundering love life leaves him in need of a distraction. So with detective constables McCrabban and McBride, he goes to work identifying the victim. The torso turns out to be all that’s left of an American tourist who once served in the U.S. military. What was he doing in Northern Ireland in the midst of the 1982 Troubles?

Hear "Cold Ground" First, Then Audlble This!

Sean Duffy’s back in both the 80s and in Belfast… A double dosing of intriguing melancholia. Please…. Please…. Please listen first to “The Cold Cold G..Show More »round”, Adrian McKinty’s introduction to Sean Duffy’s police work in the heart of the Irish “Troubles”. It’s important to avoid spoilers for that introductory book you’ll surely want to visit after you’ve finished this one.

But more importantly, Sean Duffy is bending in the fury of the cultural maelstrom raging about him. And the way the nature of all of this is shaping his development is deeply moving. Duffy of “Sirens in the Streets” is not the young man who we first met in “Cold Cold Ground”. This isn’t as much a series as it is an epic psychological evolution cut into sort of stand-alone hunks with “I Hear Sirens” as the second.

The sense of place in time hot-welds you inside of Ulster and its non-normal normalcy. Apparently McKinty means to write a trilogy but the detective puzzle this time is powerfully different from the fist and the ensemble cast adds and loses characters with the frequency of Ireland’s emigration rates.

Gerard Doyle’s mouth is filled with Irish and he speaks the story through a lilt that’s got to make this a finer experience than you’d hope for from the printed page. I’ll be among the first to buy the next installment in this Sean Duffy series.

In the Morning I'll Be Gone: Detective Sean Duffy, Book 3

It's the early 1980s in Belfast. Sean Duffy, a conflicted Catholic cop in the Protestant RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), is recruited by MI5 to hunt down Dermot McCann, an IRA master bomber who has made a daring escape from the notorious Maze prison. In the course of his investigations Sean discovers a woman who may hold the key to Dermot's whereabouts; she herself wants justice for her daughter who died in mysterious circumstances in a pub locked from the inside.

The Dangerous Gamble

This one is the best of this series by far. I loved the voice, the humor and the constant questioning character of Sean Duffy.

Gun Street Girl: Detective Sean Duffy, Book 4

Belfast, 1985. Amid the Troubles, Detective Sean Duffy, a Catholic cop in the Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary, struggles with burnout as he investigates a brutal double murder and suicide. Did Michael Kelly really shoot his parents at point-blank range and then jump off a nearby cliff? A suicide note points to this conclusion, but Duffy suspects even more sinister circumstances.

Another McKinty Gem

McKinty simply is one of the best writers out there today - of any kind. His prose is lyrical without any cloying ornamentation or sentimentality. He ..Show More »sets a firm noir tone that he brilliantly leavens with sharp observation, humor and well-defined, but not cardboard characters.But most of all, he tells a good story. It is well-paced and a continuing pleasure to read. The Gun Street Girl like the other books in this series is hard to put done.The real mystery with McKinty is why he is not more popular.

Rain Dogs: Detective Sean Duffy, Book 5

When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtyard of Carrickfergus castle, it looks like a suicide. Yet there are a few things that bother Duffy just enough to keep the case file open, which is how he finds out that Bigelow was working on a devastating investigation of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power in the UK and beyond. And so Duffy has two impossible problems on his desk: Who killed Lily Bigelow? And what were they trying to hide?

The Narrator IS the Story

Detective Sean Duffy novels are good cop stuff set in an excellent backdrop ("The Troubles" in Ireland). Rain Dogs delivers all the gritty and..Show More » humorous material we have come to expect from Adrian McKinty's erudite, but seemingly feckless (he's not…it's a ruse), Detective Inspector Duffy. However, if you are this far along in the series you don't need a lecture on that…

What I want my fellow listeners to grock is that Gerard Doyle, our reader, is one of the top five narrators in the world…unbelievably enjoyable to hear in your earbuds and totally believable as he shifts characters (male or female). HIs Irish brogue, thick or thin, is classic BBC teletheater.

This series is great, although when you begin your search click on the narrator's name first to see what he has to offer. Amazing stuff!

Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly: Detective Sean Duffy, Book 6

Belfast, 1988. A man is found dead, killed with a bolt from a crossbow in front of his house. This is no hunting accident. But uncovering who is responsible for the murder will take Detective Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on a high bog where three masked gunmen will force Duffy to dig his own grave. Hunted by forces unknown, threatened by Internal Affairs, and with his relationship on the rocks, Duffy will need all his wits to get out of this investigation in one piece.

Dark, Gritty, Potent, Masterpiece!

"A paranoid is a man who knows a little about what is going on." - Anon, Quoted from 'Police At The Station and they Don't Look Friendly'..Show More ».

My eyes are moist.Gerard Doyle reads The end credits.

No, don't end it.Want more Sean DuffyMore 80s Ulster

More Crabbie McCrabben

But Adrian McKinty Promised just 3 books And this is his 6thSean Doyle.